Tuesday, 27 July 2010

New York Times responds to claims that WikiLeaks Afghanistan War Logs release has put lives at risk

The New York Times has been answering question from readers over its use of the WikiLeaks War Logs documents. The NY Times, along with the Guardian and Der Spiegel were given exclusive access to the leaked military intelligence reports.NY Times executive editor Bill Keller answers the question "Does the WikiLeaks’ release put lives at risk?" by saying: "In the end, WikiLeaks temporarily withheld about 15,000 of the approximately 92,000 documents for what it described as a “harm minimization process.” It’s too early to tell how much that reduced the potential threat. In their raw form, we believe the documents could put lives at risk — especially Afghans who are identified as having cooperated with the NATO force, but also Americans and NATO allies, by providing information about tactics and intelligence-gathering. That is why we took great pains to eliminate such references from our coverage."

About Me

I am a freelance journalist based in the UK and was deputy editor of Press Gazette, the journalists' magazine, from 1993 until 2006. I want to give an independent view on media matters.
You can contact me with stories, ideas and comments by email at jon.slattery369@btinternet.com You can also follow me on Twitter @jonslattery